Flashing the V3

The easiest way to modify your phone is to use what is known as a monster pack.
This file contains a language pack, flash file and a flex file and
updates them all at once. You would follow these flashing instructions
to install it. Otherwise you can perform a flash and a flex
independently.

There are various types of flash files out there. There is a "flash"
(the original factory default one), the "reflash" (which does not cause you
to lose any personal data) and the "reflash mlp" (a reflash file minus the "LP"
or language pack included).

If you ever flash or flex your phone or perform some other mod and it gets away
from you and your phone gets screwed up for whatever reason, flashing with a
monster pack is a widely accepted cure all. Flashing with a monster pack
will erase all your personal data from the phone like pictures, ring tones, etc.

Head on over to MotoX to get the latest flash
or monster pack. There is usually a long list of files there so look for
your carrier (like Cingular) first, then look for the most recent upload date
second. If you wrote down earlier what you looked up on your phone, you
want to make sure you download software that is newer than what is currently on
your phone. The most recent monster pack file is the
"S/W Version R374_G_0E.42.09R_MOTOX.shx". The most recent reflash file
is "R374_G_0E.42.0ER_reflash_MOTOX.shx".

How do you tell when something is newer than what you have on your phone already?
Simple, you just have to know how to count in hex. Here's a little
lesson: hex is short for hexadecimal. At its simplest, hex numbers are
base 16 (decimal, what we use in every day counting, is base 10). Instead
of counting from 0 to 9 and then going on to 10, we count from 0 to 9 and then
A through F before going on to 10. For example: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E,
1F, 20, 21 and so on.

Are you ready to go? Did you back up anything you don't want to lose
first? A flash shouldn't delete anything, but if it stops unexpectedly
part way through or your computer loses power or the phone loses power or the
data cable becomes disconnected, anything could happen. Back up whatever
you added to the phone that you don't want to lose. All right, let's go.

I am going to cover how to flash and flex with RSD Lite and with MFF.
Maybe you'll have better luck finding one program over the other. I'll
start with RSD Lite first since it is a much easier program to work with.
You will use the same steps for flashing your phone with a monster pack, flash
(reflash) file, and a language pack. It takes about ten minutes to flash
with the monster pack. It takes about two minutes to flash a reflash.
It will take about one minute to flash the language pack.

In the image below I used a reflash file. You can see by the file name
that it is the "42.0ER" reflash. It can be used on any carrier's phone.
This will only install a flash, it will not alter the flex.

Launch RSD Lite. Then connect your phone (while it's turned on) to the
data cable. The program should detect your phone shortly.
If your phone is not detected (and you are certain you have everything
installed), disconnect the data cable, then shut your phone off, and manually
put it into bootloader mode. You do this by pressing and holding down
the "*" and "#" keys while pressing and holding down the on button until you see
text display on your screen. Now connect the phone back to the data
cable.

When your phone is connected you will see a message like the one below in the
first line of the program's status area. Click the button labeled
"..." and find where the flash is on your computer that you want to use.
Click the "Start" button. Now you should see what's displayed on the
second line of text through the sixth line as the program processes each code
group and does various other things. When it's finished you will see the
line of text on the seventh line displayed. Click the "Close" button and
you are done. Disconnect your phone from the cable and check it out.

This is what the V3 displays during a flash.

After it's finished and your phone has given you a confirmation tone, you can
click "Close" and disconnect your phone from the cable and check out your changes.

If you should get a message like this where the program seems to hang:

Don't panic. Just close the program, chance are your phone is just fine.
Sometimes this happens.

If you get a fail message like this one:

Don't panic. Just close the program, chance are your phone is just fine.
Sometimes this happens. This is usually caused by a checksum error.
There could be more serious cases where you phone appears dead.
In this case try to reflash your file again. You could also try reflashing
another file.

Ok, let's try that other program. Launch MFF. Make sure that your
phone is properly connected and in an area where it can't possibly be
disconnected by accident from the computer. Look in the "Device" column
in the lower window. You should see, "Motorola Phone [V3]". The
"Status" column will show your phone as, "Connected...."

In the "Flash Setup" section, check the "Enable Flash" box and press the
"Browse" button to locate the flash file you want to use. In my case I
located the "R374_G_0E.41.C3R_A_reflash.shx". You may have to extract it
from a ".rar".

In the "Preferences" section, make sure to check the "Override existing phone
software even if it is newer than the superfile software", "Master Clear phones
after flexing" and "Master Reset phones after flexing" boxes. For
reflashing with a reflash file and a language pack, "Master Clear..." and
"Master Reset..." don't need to be checked. However, leaving them checked
still won't touch the flex part of your phone.

Now you're ready to start. Once you click the "Start" button, you will
see the progress status in the "Status" section. Your phone will go into
flashing mode. Don't touch anything from this point on! Wait until you
see the "Successful Flash!" message.

After I hit the "Start" button the "Found New Hardware Wizard" popped up looking
for the "Motorola Flash Interface." Once again I told it to install the drivers
automatically. It found the files and finished. In the mean time
this caused MFF to abort and not flash correctly.

I hit the "Start" button and did it again. In the "Status" column several
messages were displayed one after the other like what RSD Lite displays.

When you see the success message, it's safe to close the program and disconnect
your phone. You will find your phone already turned off. Restart your
phone. Now you have a new flash and or language pack installed on your
phone. Turn your phone on and press the
key, press
"Settings" press "SELECT" scroll down to "Phone Status" press "SELECT" scroll
down to "Other Information" press "SELECT" and now you can view your
"S/W Version" which should have upgraded to "R374_G_0E.41.C3R_A" in this
example.

I would not upgrade a bootloader until you absolutely had to. I find
the video camera will not work until you have bootloader "08.23" installed.
Go to MotoX and download the
file "RAZR V3 R374 NEW BOOT LOADER 08.23" and then follow the same flashing
procedure. Select "Browse" and load the bootloader flash file.

I learned how to flash this phone from MotoX at his tutorial
right here.